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Boxer: Fiorina is 'so yesterday'

From NBC's Adam Verdugo NORTHRIDGE, Calif. -- Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has been an elected official in the Washington for the last 28 years (10 years in the House and 18 in the Senate), and in an election year when many voters are looking to bring in fresh blood, she sought Friday to portray her opponent and her policy proposals as "so yesterday."

She brought up a candid moment in which her opponent, Carly Fiorina, was caught on camera with an open mic before a television appearance talking about the senator's hair in an unflattering way.

"She said that my hair was 'so yesterday,'" Boxer said, speaking to a crowd of about 100 t0 150 here at the student center at Cal State-Northridge.

"Your hair's perfect, Barbara!" a woman from the crowd yelled.

"Maybe my hair is yesterday," Boxer said, "but my policies are for today and tomorrow and her policies are so yesterday!"

"Box-er! Box-er! Box-er!" the crowd chanted.

And thus, started the refrain. "So yesterday!" the crowd would yell after Boxer's critiques of Fiorina.

Whereas her opponent, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, often paints her business experience as a plus, Boxer, today, painted a very different picture. She reminded the crowd it was a job from which Fiorina was fired.

"She said she wants to do to America what she did to HP and that's just what we're afraid of," she said, charging that Fiorina shipped jobs overseas while at HP.

"To her, HP stood for 'Huge Payout,'" Boxer said. "She got $21 million on the day that she was fired. The average Californian would have to work 400 years, full-time to come up with that amount of money. She's not in touch."

"And her policies are..." Boxer prompted the crowd.

"So yesterday!" they said in concert.

She talked about "women's right to choose," saying she remembered the days when abortion was illegal.

The audience consisted of mostly students. Also in attendance was the area's congressman, Brad Sherman (easy to remember, Sherman represnets Sherman Oaks, which is about 10 minutes away). Boxer also took time before her remarks to inform the crowd about the "interception of some very suspicious packages that were coming from Yemen into Chicago."

"They were intercepted, and that is good news for us," she said, "because it means that all of the work that we are doing to build these relationships across the world, its working."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced Boxer as the "great present and future" senator from California. Between the two of them, they have 46 years of experience in Washington.

"This is an election where we see so much that is hyperbole -- so much like 'I'm for freedom, and you're not. I'm for liberty and you're not. I'm for small government and you're not,'" she said. "And yet think: how many real solutions have you heard come out of all this hyperbole.

"The business that experience doesn't matter is something I don't agree with at all."

She said that when she and Boxer first went to the Senate, they were "back-benchers."

"It takes time to accrue the seniority," Feinstein said, "which allows you to be a major voice in the Senate."